Auditor Faber asks Senate to keep House funding to avoid steep local audit rate increases

Auditor of State Keith Faber told the Senate Finance Committee that insufficient funding from the executive recommendation would require large increases to the hourly audit rates charged to local governments and schools, and he urged senators to retain the House’s funding levels adopted in the substitute version of House Bill 96.

Faber said his office audits roughly 6,000 Ohio government entities and runs the Uniform Accounting Network used by many townships and villages. He described the auditor’s office as “the watchdog on those who spend government money,” and highlighted units that perform investigative work, performance audits and local government assistance.

Under current law and practice, local audits have been heavily subsidized to keep the hourly billing rate low for smaller governments. Faber said the current state audit rate for 2025 is $90 per hour and that rate is expected to rise to about $96 in the next biennium; local government audit rates had been held at $41 per hour since 2011 because of state subsidy.

Faber asked for a modest increase to local audit billing of $1 per hour (to $42 in 2026 and $43 in 2027). He said the governor’s recommended funding shortfalls—about $6 million in FY26 and $10.7 million in FY27, as presented to his office—would have instead required a much larger rate increase: roughly $50 in year one and $56 in year two. "We asked the House and they agreed to fully fund us at our original budget submission," Faber said, and he asked the Senate to do the same so the smaller, incremental increases remain sufficient.

Faber also described other details of the office: an authorized staffing level of roughly 800 employees, a reduction of leased office space by more than 50,000 square feet since 2019 and lease cost savings totaling about $6.665 million. He described enforcement results, including more than 130 criminal convictions closed by the Special Investigations Unit since he became auditor.

He discussed the office’s performance‑audit work (the Ohio Performance Team) and said revising performance audits toward programmatic reviews has increased return on investment; he cited a historical return on investment of more than 20:1 for performance audits. Faber said the House substitute for HB96 included funding at the levels his office requested, and he asked senators to adopt similar funding so local governments and schools do not face steep rate increases.

Committee members asked about Medicaid provider audits, auditing school five‑year forecasts and the office’s regional footprint; Faber said provider audits are federally reimbursed in part and that his office plans a new School District Financial Health Indicators tool to flag fiscal problems earlier.

Faber concluded by thanking the House for adopting his funding levels and asking the Senate to maintain that support.